Tacitus, quoting Calgacus, wrote that Rome “makes a desert and calls it peace.” Today, in the United States, Barack Obama ruins an institution and calls it a legacy.

The Washington Times reports, “President Obama has become one of the nation’s most successful commanders in chief when it comes to at least one battlefield: the liberal agenda.” Unfortunately, for the country, that means it was the Pentagon that surrendered.
Times have changed. In the ’60s and ’70s Pentagon brass dedicated themselves to fighting the VC. Today careers dictate their efforts be directed toward fighting for PC.

Obama’s legacy will be a military that is perfectly suited to conduct a successful assault on Liberty University: Soften up the Lynchburg, Va., campus with Hellfire missile strikes on the Theology Department. During the ensuing chaos make sure professors specializing in Old Testament beliefs are neutralized. Remove all binary gender assignment signage from campus bathrooms. Finally convert classrooms into re–education academies to enable a rigorous program of mental–building.

Although liberty isn’t the pushover opponent many assume — they aren’t Quakers, there’s a football team and students are allowed to carry concealed weapons — there is no question Obama’s new military force structure will be much less capable of confronting opponents that build their military around less peripheral concerns.

Ours is embarking on an expensive and incoherent set of policies that will degrade combat power in the future, with only the Marine Corps, as usual, fighting a lonely rear guard action. Obama’s “legacy” harms our national defense in three ways: personnel policies, technology, and mission.

With Obama’s track record for abandoning allies, you’d think Moms Demand Action would be paying more attention to administration gun-control policy. Because in the military, instead of denying the mentally ill access to deadly weapons, Obama’s Pentagon poodles encourage access.

If a civilian has been hospitalized because the voices were telling him he’s really Jesus, he’ll discover after his release that he can’t legally buy a derringer until Christ returns. But if different voices tell another individual that regardless of his birth certificate he’s really a woman, or she’s a man, then Uncle Sam has an M1A2 main battle tank that’s just their size!

Then there’s the policy of putting presumably sane women into combat.

In modern times the only military that made extensive use of female combat troops was the Red Army in World War II and frankly I doubt the American people will be comfortable in the long run with adopting the personnel polities of Stalin.

Leftists counter with the Israeli Defense Forces. The only time the average Democrat has anything positive to say about Israel is when they mention IDF female soldiers in combat roles, so it’s unfortunate that I must debunk that notion. That happened long ago when the Israelis were still in the grips of socialist fantasy (see Stalin above) and the initiative was discontinued.

Marine Corps research using mixed–gender units found those units move slower, are less accurate, and are less effective in combat tests 69 percent of the time.

None of our potential opponents have women in front-line combat units, but they are encouraging the U.S. to expand its program.

Once these units hit the front line, Obama technology edicts reduce the chance of survival. He’s ordered research on “smart gun” development designed to produce a rifle with “biometrics or a PIN number so only the owner can fire it.”

Historically the Pentagon has had trouble developing dumb guns that can fire without jamming and have the punch to eliminate the enemy. There’s even evidence our military has trouble providing ammunition and orders to operate the weapons we do have. (See U.S. Navy and Iranian pirates, January 2016.)

Obama ignores centuries of battlefield experience where soldiers routinely gather discarded weapons for defensive purposes to speed reloading and create the impression of greater numbers. In addition, it’s not uncommon for a soldier’s weapon to be hit by enemy fire and be rendered inoperative.

Adopting “smart gun” technology means, unless the enemy is willing to loan her a weapon, the soldier will soon be rendered inoperative, too because she won’t be able to fire anyone else’s rifle.

Finally, there’s the mission. Obama has directed Secretary of Deference Ash Carter to add a new “climate change” bureaucracy to an already paper–bound Pentagon. If you're looking for hopeless conflicts with no discernible exit strategy, then “climate change” is the opponent of choice.

In the past D–Day was postponed due to a bad weather forecast. Thanks to Obama, future operations may be canceled due to a bad carbon forecast.

Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher (for the League of American Voters), and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)." Read more of Michael Shannon's reports — Go Here Now.